The Snow is Melting… Let’s Make Our Own Snow (safe to eat & coconut scented)!

I actually didn’t think we’d be getting any snow this year, in our corner of the English South coast. We’d just about got to the end of February without more than one light dusting, but then we were hit! ‘The Beast from the East’ struck, with snowfall and cold temperatures, and to Penguin’s delight we got enough snow to actually play with. He doesn’t like being out in the cold for too long though, and he’s not really interested in making any elaborate (or even not so elaborate) snow creations. But he likes the look of the snow, and loves to squeeze it into lumps and then crumbling them apart again. Plus having a bit of a taste of it, of course. I remember eating snow as a child, but was always told it could give you worms… but now I’m seeing recipes for ‘snow ice cream’ (using actual snow) online, so I’m guessing the risks were exagerated? Anyway, I digress, let’s get on with what this post was supposed to be about, which is: Making your own homemade play snow!

As the snowy ‘Beast’ is now leaving us and the white stuff outside is quickly turning into puddles, some of us might like to enjoy a bit of DIY snow play. This one comes without the coldness, but with a scent of coconut! Here’s our recipe:

Very simple, right? The measurements are not precise at all, as I started by putting some coconut oil in a shallow glass dish, microwaving it until it had melted and then added the corn flour bit by bit until we were happy with the texture. Then made some more in a separate dish (because more is more!) and added it all toghether.

I chose coconut oil as it’s clear in colour, to keep the ‘snow’ as white as possible. It also has the added bonus of adding some olfactory stimulation. However, if you don’t like coconut, you could choose a different type of oil, or get an odour/flavour-free coconut oil. I can’t think of any other cooking oil which is clear in colour? If you can, please share it with us in the comments, thank you!

I do like it when good sensory play can be created using edible ingredients, as Penguin has always been happy to have a little taste of things (other than actual food stuffs, ironically, though this has got a lot better over the last year or so). So that’s another bonus with this, other than it being fab to play with, of course! The corn flour is brilliant stuff, as it works really well for squeezing together into snow balls, and then crumbles easily again, just the way Penguin likes it. It even has a ‘creakyness’ to it similar to real snow, though it’s obviously not as icy or cold. We did actually try putting it in the freezer as well, but that made the coconut oil go really hard, so it just made cold crumbs and couldn’t be squeezed into balls etc.

We actually made this play snow just BEFORE being hit by the ‘Beast from the East’ snowfalls. Penguin really enjoyed playing with it then, and now that we’ve had a break from it while enjoying the real thing for a few days, it’s handy to bring this back out again.

If you want to, you can add cups, spoons, playdough tools etc to play with (as Penguin has decided to do on a couple of occasions). Or why not make a little snow world by adding polar bears, reindeer, or… penguins! However, it’s also really nice to just use your hands to fully explore the sensory qualities of this super easy diy play stuff. Enjoy!

Hopefully this can soften the blow of the snow melting away ☺️ I used to love snow as a kid, including catching flakes on the tongue, but nowadays I’m more of a comfort creature and don’t like getting cold x ❄️

Haha yep that’s about as much as I can put up with nowadays too 😄 Not like when I was a little girl who’d happily spend hours and hours tunneling in piles of snow, going up and down slopes on a sledge, making snow angels, or just lay back looking up at the falling snow, trying to focus on individual snowflakes as they got closer and closer to my face. I was an easily entertained child lol 😊x

What a great idea for sensory play. The creakiness of the cornflour would be interesting in its own right. We’ve made maple syrup snow ice cream in the past. Can confirm that no worms were encountered. 🙂 #MMBC

We hardly had any snow at all here, so I might need to give this fun activity a try so my children can at least pretend to play in snow! Sounds like a lovely simple thing to put together too! x #KCACOLS

Oh I have so had enough of snow! Haha. This does look great though, really good activity with the kids – my boy would probably try to eat it whether it was edible or not! Thanks for joining us at #familyfun

#thesatsesh a fab idea, It reminded me of when little dude was about 2 and `i ran a sensory series on my blog. I ended up stopping because he was bored of dough to play with every week and i was addicted to the scents and textures. lol….the photos just make me want to play 🙂